World

ByCompiled from wire service reports by Robert Kilborn and Ross AtkinSeptember 27, 2004

The chief of Iraq's National Guard was arrested by US troops only a week after being appointed to the post. Lt. Gen. Talib al-Lahibi was suspected of collaborating with terrorists. Meanwhile, US warplanes pounded the volatile city of Fallujah for the third time in 24 hours, killing 15 people and touching off secondary explosions, suggesting that the strikes had hit sites used by terrorists to store explosives.

An exiled senior Hamas leader died as a bomb exploded under his car seat in Damascus, Syria - an attack in which Israeli security officials acknowledged being involved. The assassination of Izz el-Deen al-Sheikh Khalil was believed to be the first by Israel on Syrian soil, although Prime Minister Sharon's government has warned that no leader of the terrorist group was safe anywhere. Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel, reported that Hamas also had vowed to attack Israeli targets abroad in revenge, but a spokesman for the group denied that such a decision had been made.

Many Haitians took time away from relief efforts to attend church services Sunday, as their country struggled to cope with the effects of tropical storm Jeanne. UN peacekeeping troops in the hard-hit city of Gonaives required reinforcement because of looting and rioting at food-distribution centers. The government was planning to relocate Gonaives residents to a tent camp while crews remove debris and sludge that have coated some of its neighborhoods. The storm is blamed for at least 1,500 deaths.

All 301 people aboard a Greek passenger jet were evacuated safely after it landed under "full emergency" conditions at Stan-sted Airport in London. Early reports said British fighter planes intercepted it en route from Athens to New York because of a bomb alert.

The same rebels with whom Sudan is negotiating over the Darfur crisis and an opposition party were behind a coup plot uncovered last week, authorities claimed. They said they found a cache of weapons with which the rebels planned to kill 38 senior leaders and to blow up key facilities in Khartoum, the capital. A political opposition spokesman called the accusation "a fabrication." President Omar el-Bashir has accused his opponents of at least two previous coup plots this year.

Vowing that he'd never hesitate to do "whatever is necessary" to protect Australians against the threat of terrorism, Prime Minister John Howard formally opened his campaign for reelection. He was buoyed by the results of a new opinion poll that showed his Liberal/National Party coalition with an eight-point lead over the opposition Labor Party. Howard has said Australia's 850 troops in Iraq will remain there as long as they're needed. His challenger, Mark Latham, has pledged to bring them home by Christmas if he's elected Oct. 9.